Young women at greater risk of dying after bypass surgery than men.(Brief Article)

2002 APR 18 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Researchers have noted that younger women who suffer heart attacks are more likely to die in the hospital than their male counterparts. Now there's evidence that younger women are also about three times more likely than men to die in the hospital following a procedure often performed to prevent heart attacks - bypass surgery.

That's the conclusion reached by a team of Emory University researchers whose findings will be published in the March issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The research findings are in the Rapid Access online version of Circulation (Feb. 2002) (http://circ.ahajournals.org/).

"The difference between women and men is particularly striking in those younger than age 60," said lead author Viola Vaccarino, MD, PhD, of the Emory Department of Medicine's Division of Cardiology.

The Emory scientists reviewed records of 51,187 patients - 15,178 (29.7%) of them women - in the National Cardiovascular Network database who underwent bypass surgery at 23 medical centers between October 1993 and December 1999. The patients were divided into five age groups: younger than age 50, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, and age 80 and older. In patients aged 50-59, women had more than twice the risk of in-hospital ...